


Saving Mrs. Fleming

by Selena



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, Alfred Hitchcock RPF, Mary Renault RPF
Genre: Character Study, Dark Comedy, Gen, Mommy Issues, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:18:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2794511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/pseuds/Selena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1947, Mary Renault's novel <i>Return to Night</i> won the MGM award. The director charged with filming it: Alfred Hitchcock.  Where her book ended, their story began...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire from Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/gifts).



> **Disclaimer** : This never happened. 
> 
> **Thanks to** : AJHall for discussing the ideas and providing a likely Hitchcock twist on a Mary Renault fiction; Kathyh for her beta-reading; and Disney for coming up with _Saving Mr. Banks_ which of course gave me the initial idea and the summary line. :) 
> 
> **Warnings** : between Mary Renault's issues and Alfred Hitchcock's hang ups, you get internalized misogyny, fat shaming, brief use of homophobic slang, voyeurism, emotional abuse backstory and above all mommy issues.

I.

"Well, there's nothing to it," he said to Alma after the full implications of the latest news had sunken in. All their plans for Transatlantic Pictures were on hold. There wouldn't _be_ any Transatlantic Pictures if he couldn't finally get rid of his wretched contract with wretched David Selznick. Who'd just managed to have a complete breakdown at the worst possible moment. "No more _Paradine Case_ . It'll have to be the MGM thing, or we'll go broke. Or shackled to David for the rest of our lives, which is worse."

Alma wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure there _is_ a picture in the MGM book, darling," she said doubtfully. "I've read it."

He groaned, and slumped back into his chair. The chair wobbled. Time for another diet. The horror.

"That bad, hm?"

"Oh, no," Alma said. "It's got a ghastly mother and lots of car drives." There was a glint in her eyes. Alma loved cars, loved driving them and loved mapping car chases out on a storyboard. And she knew how he appreciated neurotics. "And a cave," she continued. "But it's awfully interior, otherwise. Lots of mental agonies. It'll have to be a complete change of plot, or rather, a new plot. And we don't have the time to hire another outsider to work with. It'll have to be the author. Joan says she hasn't written a script in her life."

Which wasn't necessarily a disadvantage. In his experience, novelists who were new to the film industry took less time to browbeat. For a moment, he remembered John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize winner with delusions of scriptwriting expertise, and shuddered. Chances were, though, that this novelist would be more co-operative. A sensible Englishwoman grateful for some Hollywood money after the war; how bad could it get?  


"We'll get her into shape," Hitchcock said confidently. "You'll see, it'll be fun. Anyone naming themselves after a French car is bound to have a sense of humour. "

"Oh, she certainly has _something_ ," Alma said wryly, and started to look for her copy of the book which had just won the MGM award. The book they'd been told MGM was eager to film, as quickly as possible, because during the three years the MGM award had been given for the expressed purpose of encouraging literary material also suited for cinematic adaption, not a single book thus singled out had been turned into an actual movie, and it was starting to attract public ridicule.

"Goodbye, _Paradine Case_ , Hitchcock murmured, "and hello, Miss Renault."

* * *

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/SelenaK/media/Fannish%20Stuff/hitchandalma3_zpsc84f6d7c.jpg.html)

 

II.

Her mother, dressed impeccably in widow's weeds even in the middle of rationing and general shortage, looked at Mary as if she'd just been told to be impressed by what was actually a social misdemeanour that her daughter had been tasteless enough to commit. It was the expression with which Clementine Challans had greeted anything from scholarly brilliance at Oxford to book contracts, and so it didn't surprise Mary in the least.

"Well, " Clementine said, "at least you won't have to work in that ghastly hospital anymore. A pity it didn't happen earlier, of course; we could have hired a better nurse for your father."

Mary had worked as a nurse though most of the war. She also had nursed her father through his final weeks of throat cancer when her mother had asked her to. As maternal put-downs were concerned, this was par the course for Clementine; Mary wondered why she had assumed news about the miraculous sum of 150 000 dollars, or over 37 000 pounds, would make a change. Perhaps because while her mother had never been interested in Mary's writings, she could count and had to be aware that this was more than a schoolteacher earned in his entire life time.

"You won't have to pay it back if they don't make a film, will you?" her mother asked with a trace of what almost sounded like concern.

"No," Mary returned and wished she had written a letter instead of coming to Cambridge. Julie had predicted it would only spoil her joy and wondered why Mary thought Clementine deserved to hear good news in person, after the way she'd left Mary behind at the funeral. She'd called her far too forgiving. The uncomfortable truth was the impulse which had brought her to Cambridge had nothing to do with forgiveness, and more with a wish to gloat. Her mother had never believed she'd amount to anything and had predicted a lifetime of drudgery in hospitals due to "your inability to attract a nice young man when you were still somewhat presentable". Good reviews of Mary's earlier novels had never changed Clementine's mind, because Clementine didn't care about books beyond the occasional cheap thriller. But she did like what she insisted on calling "the pictures", worshipping on the feet of the manufactured eidolon, and so Mary had counted on, well, _something_.

"The money is mine no matter what happens," she added, for emphasis. Truth to tell, she could hardly believe it herself. It did mean freedom, and a life devoted to nothing but books and Julie.

"In that case," Clementine said, "you could use some of it to improve your appearance. The war is over, dear. No need to look so drab all the time. Who knows, maybe there is still a chance for..."

Enough was enough. "I bought us a houseboat," Mary said sharply. "For Julie and myself."

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/SelenaK/media/Fannish%20Stuff/maryrenaultandjuliemullard_zpsdbcb3f46.jpg.html)

Her relationship with Julie had started before the war. In all this time, neither of her parents had ever referred to Julie as anything but "your friend, Miss Mullard," which actually would have been fine, since Mary dreaded being labeled with words referring to people she by and large disdained. But she did want it acknowledged that she had made her choice and there should be no more attempts to squeeze her into a life fitting with her mother's ideals of femininity.

"A boat?" her mother repeated, an eyebrow raised. "I'm not sure that was wise, dear. You won't be able to sell it again easily if things _don't_ work out. After all, who'd be ridiculous enough to want to live in a boat when they say the next winter will be the hardest in a decade?"

_She is a silly woman who knows nothing_ , Mary thought with increasing desperation, but one of the worst things about Clementine was that for all her ignorance when it came to literature and philosophy, her mother did have a hard practical streak.

"We'll be living in Cornwall during the winter. It's warm in Cornwall, and..."

"Are you sure there'll be enough money left for that", Clementine interrupted, "what with that ghastly wartime income tax the government still hasn't lifted? Now I could be wrong, because dear Joyce handles those dreary declarations for us. Your sister is _such_ a good girl. But I do seem to recall one still has to pay 19s 6d to the pound, doesn't one, and if those Americans give you 37 000 pounds, that's..."

She fell silent. Her gaze on Mary was bright and expectant. Clementine was still a handsome woman; she'd been beautiful in her youth, as Mary had not been, and always dressed to resemble the flawless porcelain dolls she'd given Mary when Mary had only wanted toys like Jumbo the soft elephant and thrown the dolls away.

Her mother had never forgiven her for this, Mary was sure. It had started the long list of resentments between them, and the silent and not so silent warfare that had brought her here, to this room, where her mother still managed to reduce her to nothing with a few well chosen words.

Mary had always thought she'd inherited her love of language and of books from her father. But the truth was that her father, while an avid reader, had never cared to share any of his thoughts on them; had never engaged in conversation at all if he could avoid it. By contrast, her mother, who couldn't tell Alexander from Charlemagne and either from Napoleon, and wouldn't care to, labeling them all "foreign", never ceased to think of new creative ways to express her disdain.

She wasn't wrong, though. That was the worst of it. Mary should have thought of the tax, but she hadn't. The giddiness at the thought of being free from all worries had been too overwhelming. For a horrible second, she imagined ending up in debt because of what she'd spent already, and told herself not to be ridiculous. It couldn't have been that much.

But it might be best if she accepted the offer that had come with the news of the award. Originally, she hadn't meant to. It wasn't that she was a snob who disliked Hollywood, or Americans. As a girl, she'd loved cowboy movies, and dreamt herself in the place of the heroes, riding over the plains on their white steeds, proudly, with nothing to hold them back. But for her, _Return to Night_ had been over and done with. She'd written a novel since. She was planning the next one.

"A lot of money," she returned, meeting her mother's eyes with a challenging look of her own. "So it's a good thing, isn't it, that the Americans will give me even more. You see, they want me to work on the script for the film version."

"Well, as long as they pay for the journey", her mother murmured. "I hear ship passages are more expensive than ever, and as for the hotels..."

But there was a quick flicker of envy on Clementine's face this time, at last, and unmistakably. Nobody would pretend not to want a journey to America, where the cities hadn't been bombed and the food wasn't still rationed. With great regret, Mary replied:

"They'll be doing the film here. The director is even an Englishman, though he's worked in Hollywood these last ten years."

"One of those," her mother commented, and left it at that. Mary had to admit she could understand Clementine's feelings there. Sitting the war out in Hollywood could hardly be described as patriotic, and there had been a lot of jibes in the press about the British community in Hollywood from 1939 onwards.

Then again, if Mary had been in the country of make believe at the start of the war, maybe she wouldn't have returned, either. In any case, she'd seen a photo of the director in an article; as directors went, he was fairly well known, and there had been attention in the press when he'd returned to England earlier this year for another film project that had apparently been held in production for some mysterious reason. The man in the photographs had struck her as resembling a smooth egg with eyes and a mouth; certainly not as someone who'd been useful in the war effort.

"So you see," she said, ignoring her mother's words, "I won't be able to visit during the next few months. I'll be working with Mr. Hitchcock."


	2. The Bull from Overseas

III. 

The smell of cities shouldn't change, Hitchcock thought, and yet it did. He had visited London a few times during the war, and most recently in preparation for _The Paradine Case_ , but this was the first time Alma had returned ever since they had left. She'd made the mistake of going to see their old house in Cromwell Road. Of course they'd sold it when leaving England, but she'd wanted to see it again, and he could guess by her expression what she had found. Maybe he was imagining things, but sometimes it felt as if you could still breathe in the rubble the blitz had left. 

"And that, my dear," he said, "is why I prefer to stay at Claridge's." 

That, and the fact they would have to confine themselves somewhere for weeks in order to finish the script as quickly as possible. He usually worked with four or five scriptwriters; one main writer, other scenarists, and Alma as the final redrafter and editor. But James Bridie, the Scottish dramatist who'd written _The Paradine Case_ for them, refused to come to London on short notice, Charles Bennett was still sulking over being called a better scenarist than dialogue writer in an interview, and Joan, wonderful Joan who'd been Alma's main partner in writing and his secretary, had moved on in the world and had become a producer, only occasionally dropping by for visits and right now an ocean away. The novelist would have to do. They were expecting her for lunch. As a boy, he'd fantasized about living at Claridge's, beautiful Claridge's of the art decor and fairy tale atmosphere, utterly out of reach of a grocer's son from Leytonstone. The novelist, according to the information he'd been given, was some genteel spinster who'd been to Oxford, which probably meant she would not admit to being impressed easily, but he was still willing to bet Claridge's was out of her budget right now. With some luck, this would make her malleable from the start. 

They weren't alone in waiting. Sidney Bernstein was with them, freshly smarting and fuming over the fate of the concentration camp documentary Hitchcock had done for him. They'd been friends since the 1920s, Sidney and the Hitchcocks, had dreamt up the hopefully soon to be launched Transatlantic Pictures together, and when Sidney had asked him to work on the footage from the camps, he'd agreed. He'd fancied himself an expert in death, but this particular work had turned his stomach on a frequent basis. Now, it seemed, it had all been in vain. 

"They told me to hand it over to the Imperial War Museum", Sidney said bitterly. "Said it wouldn't get released, not now when they needed the German machinery going again. The Germans are in a state of apathy, Mr. Bernstein, they don't need to get their noses rubbed in, they actually told me that to my face. I quit. No more ministry of information for me. When can we start with Transatlantic Pictures?"

"When I'm free of Selznick, you know that," Hitchcock said patiently while Alma patted Sidney's hand. "Which will be soon. "

"You already said that about this _Paradine_ fiasco. That was supposed to be the last one. And then he goes and has a breakdown and puts it all on hold. What if he does it again?"

"He won't," Alma assured him. "Because it's an MGM property, and he really needs to pay off his divorce debts." 

David Selznick, neurotic, gifted, interfering and absolutely infuriating David, had been the producer who'd originally brought Hitchcock to Hollywood. Hitchcock had been so desperate to go there that he had agreed to what was, retrospectively, a contract which was a millstone around his neck of outrageous proportions. The times he'd been able to work with other studios had been breathing room, but David Selznick had got a percentage of each and every one of those other pictures, and still been able to micromanage every picture Hitchcock did directly for Selznick productions. _The Paradine Case_ being but the latest case in point. Hitchcock hadn't got any of the actors he wanted, or the composer he wanted, Selznick had even started with on-set script revisions in addition to his endless memos. Then he'd collapsed, but not so much that he couldn't order a halt to the entire movie because he didn't trust Hitchcock to finish it the way he, David Selznick, wanted, without his supervision.

It was enough to drive anyone to plot murder, and very inspirational if he ever wanted to do a mystery set around a film production. But just to complicate things further, David Selznick did indeed need to pay off divorce debts, both financial and emotional, and the wife he was getting divorced from was none other than Louis B. Mayer's favourite daughter Irene. It had been Irene who'd thought of suggesting a trade to solve MGM's desperate need to get at least one of their award books filmed, and quickly. Now Hitchcock had it in writing: _Return to Night_ would be his passport to freedom. 

The title might have to go, though. Along with a lot of other things. He _had_ read it by now and immediately understood what Alma had meant. 

"There she is," Alma said, directing his attention to a woman in a cardigan who wouldn't have looked out of place at his mother's bridge table, though she couldn't be older than 40. His favourite waiter was escorting her into the salon Hitchcock had reserved for himself. She came closer, and he revised his casting: not a bridge player as much as a horsewoman. There was striding in that gait. Her face was purposeful as well as pleasant, but nothing remarkable; it was the expression that did it, an interesting mixture of insecurity and haughtiness. Sidney rose when he spotted her, and Hitchcock made a production out of rising as well. He had no intention of doing that more than once, and it was pointless to pretend it wasn't an effort, so he did what he'd done since he'd been a chubby schoolboy: anticipating the jokes by deliberately pointing towards his weight and making them first. 

"Here he is, the great white whale, Miss Renault," he said. "Or is it Miss Challans? Which do you prefer?" 

"It is Ren-olt", she corrected firmly, accent indeed that of the genteel spinster he had anticipated, and he could see Sidney, who knew Hitchcock didn't like know-it-alls, hid a grin. "The English, not the French way. But I do prefer it. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Hitchcock."

"Oh, please," he said, allowing just a hint of his native Cockney to slip back into his well trained voice. "It's Hitch without the cock."

It was an introduction he'd got used to in the States. Most Americans, male or female, gave him a look as if to assure themselves they'd heard what they'd heard, then decided he probably didn't know what he was saying or that this must be British humour and carried on. The few who laughed and took him up on it invariably became his favourites on the set. 

Miss Renault - or Ren-olt - just frowned impatiently and neither pretended she hadn't heard and understood nor even tried to smile and reply to the double entendre. Instead, she seemed to wait for a follow up on his part. After a short, uncomfortable silence, Sidney introduced himself, then introduced her to Alma. 

"Congratulations on the award", Alma said, because she did remember to include niceties like that, and added with a warm smile: "I look forward to working with such a fine novelist."

Puzzlement crossed Miss Renault's face. Her frown momentarily deepened. "Thank you," she said politely. There was definitely an undercurrent there now. 

"Mrs. Hitchcock is also Miss Reville," Sidney explained, who'd evidently caught on as to the reason for her reaction before Hitchcock did. "One of the most seasoned scriptwriters on both sides of the Atlantic, I dare say. You're a lucky woman to have her as your guide in your first foray into motion pictures, Miss Renault." 

"Marvellous", she said, and Hitchcock decided this wouldn't do at all.


	3. The Trouble with Mary

IV. 

Mary was determined to try. Not just because of the money. The more she had thought about it, the more it appeared as the closest thing she could get to what had been her second favourite childhood ambition, after writing. She loved the theatre. She'd always known that she didn't have enough talent to become a professional, and in the end it didn't rival writing in her heart. But she had loved being in charge of an amateur production during her time in Oxford and playing the male leading role in it, and she had seen John Gielgud as Richard II. over twenty times. True, the cinema wasn't the stage, but being involved in the production of a motion picture based on her own book surely could be a fun adventure, if nothing else. 

But it didn't take her long to realise how naive she'd been. For starters, there was the mere physical presence of the director. She had to admit to holding a certain aesthetic bias. The agonies of Hamlet would have left her indifferent, had they come aligned to a weak chin and a paunchy figure. She'd never had any sympathies for Falstaff. Mr. Hitchcock was even heavier than his photos in the press had indicated. He had what Julie would unhesitatingly have called "piggy eyes", and like a pig's they seemed to hold a cunning malice. The puerile attempts at humour were nothing new, she'd heard far worse on a daily basis when nursing soldiers in the hospitals. But when he indicated he would palm her off to his wife, she started to feel offended. At the very least, he should know to treat her like a professional. 

She told herself not to slide into shrill feminist hysteria. If there was a group of women she disliked more than her mother's type of pearl-wearing matrons fencing everyone in, it was the delusional set that masked their own inadequacies with claiming the sole reason why there hadn't been women of genius to equal Shakespeare or Newton was that they had not been free from household duties. But she still thought that a male novelist would never have been told he would be "guided" into scriptwriting by not even the director, but the director's _wife_ , undoubtedly fancying herself a professional because her husband indulged her for the sake of marital peace. 

Her father had simply vanished into his library in order to escape from her mother's endless naggings. At least he hadn't tried to inflict her presence on his colleagues in the hospital. 

A memory, unbidden and still burning, came to her before she could suppress it: her father, when she'd told him she didn't want to become a matron after he'd offered to use his influence to get her promoted. Nursing during the war had seemed to her both a patriotic gesture and a way to earn her living which she knew she could do, but she didn't want any position that would take even more time away from her writing, and certainly not one where she would be in charge of other women. 

He'd thrown up his hands in disgust. _Oh God, I have this daughter, and all she ever says is no..._

He'd withdrawn into his library then, too. His library, which had never, ever, contained one of her books. She had thought that one day, he'd ask her about them, or at least mention he had read one. Maybe even tell her his opinion, no matter how critical. But he never had. 

Her father was dead, that was all there was to it, and she had to focus on the present. The present, where she had to give the Hitchcocks the benefit of the doubt and not allow a bad first impression to take hold. If nothing else, she could always use them as character material. 

So Mary tried to establish common ground and keep a positive mind set. She told them about her childhood fondness for Westerns to prove she was no cultural elitist. 

"Can't say I ever liked them", the fat director drawled. "I kept wondering where people went to the bathroom ." 

"You're just holding a grudge because John Ford keeps beating you at the Oscars", Mr. Bernstein said to him, and Hitchcock laughed without denying it. 

"Now what I like are Disney pictures," he said instead. "How about you, Miss Renault?" 

He still pronounced it like the French car. 

"Well..."

"Disney has the best breed of actors. If he doesn't like their performances, he can always rub them out. Now tell me there's a director who hasn't had that wish, and I'll call you a liar."

"I love actors," Mary said defiantly before she could stop herself. 

"Which goes well with your fondness for Westerns," he said, and shrugged. "Actors are cattle." 

Mary pressed her lips together and silently counted to ten. Considering that a great deal of _Return to Night_ revolved around Julian's desire to be an actor, suppressed by his mother for her own horrid reasons, it now looked like the book couldn't be in worse hands. 

"Speaking of actors," Hitchcock continued cheerfully, "what do you think about Ingrid Bergman for Hilary?"

Hilary was _Return to Night's_ no-nonsense, strong heroine, a doctor and Julian's saviour, Demeter to his year king, guiding him through the dark night of his soul and helping him to fulfill his destiny. She was Mary's attempt to write a mature, sensible woman in her thirties, not some juvenile lead. Not that Ingrid Bergman was juvenile, but going by what vague impressions Mary remembered, she had the type of soft face that denied any knowledge of hardship. 

"I don't think anyone would believe her as a practicing doctor", Mary replied honestly. 

"Hm. Not a fan of _Spellbound_ , I take it?" the director asked while Mrs. Hitchcock looked like she was suppressing a snort. Mary had no idea what he was referring to. 

"Ingrid Bergman has played a doctor," Sidney Bernstein said hastily. "For Hitch, in _Spellbound_." 

Mary had not watched or even heard of this particular film, which became glaringly obvious as she didn't know what to say. The director's wife unexpectedly came to her aid.

"Which is why I don't think you'll get her to play this one," Mrs. Hitchcock stated, addressing her husband. "It's just too similar. A doctor falling in love with her patient and saving him. She won't want to do that twice in a row. And certainly not in anything Selznick related. You know how she feels about David."

"I know how we all feel about David", Hitchcock replied and pursed his lips which given the size of his face looked like the pout of a depraved baby. 

"Ingrid is also expensive," Mrs. Hitchcock continued relentlessly. "And busy. You know you liked Ann Todd best of anyone David made you cast in _The Paradine Case_ , and she's adrift, available, and already paid." 

Ann Todd did not look a bit like how Mary had imagined Hilary - she was too small, for starters, - but at least one could see her in a hospital. 

"I don't think she's a Demeter type, but..." Mary began, only to be interrupted.

"Ah yes, that reminds me", Hitchcock said, and suddenly the wistfulness that had come into his face when talking of Ingrid Bergman was gone again. "All these Greek allusions. They'll have to go. In favour of a plot. Now I'm the first to say the fun is in the chase, not the resolution, but : his true father is a Canadian actor? Really? That's what all the fuss was about?"

"Given some Canadians I know..." Sidney Bernstein muttered. 

"A Canadian actor who committed bigamy", Mary returned. "And Mrs. Fleming is a deeply conventional woman. She cannot bear the thought of any scandal touching her name. That is why she ruined the poor man's career after discovering he was already married, and that is why she is so set on ruining her son's life as well." 

"We gathered as much from the novel," Mrs. Hitchcock said, for the first time with a note of sharpness in her soft Nottinghamshire voice. "But it still won't do as a climax in the pictures." 

Truth to tell, Mary had struggled with her ending. She always did. She had also struggled with what the secret would be. Her first idea had been for Julian's father to have been a man loving other men, a Greek hero lost in the wrong era, who'd tried to live the horrible married life and failed. But she hadn't quite dared to go there, chiding herself for cowardice but defending the creative decision since Julian being just like his father would have made his relationship with Hilary unbelievable had that been the case. But she _would_ write about men loving other men. She would. In the next book. 

"But it _is_ the secret", she said. "You can't expect me to change the entire story that much..." 

Her voice faltered as three pairs of eyes looked at her in varying degrees of amusement and pity. 

"My dear," Mrs. Hitchcock said, "I'm afraid that is what film writing means." 

Belatedly, Mary finally remembered a Hitchcock film she had actually watched, and why she hadn't recalled it before. Supposedly, it had been based on Josephine Tey's novel _A Shilling for Candles_ , a novel Mary had just read at the time, but other than a dead body on the beach, nothing else had been kept from the book, including the detective, Alan Grant, who'd been thrown out of the action in favor of making the policeman's daughter the main character. 

She could have left then and there. Taxes or no taxes, some of the prize money would remain hers, and there was no reason why she should subject herself to altering her imagination's children for the benefit of these vulgar people. Except for one. They evidently expected her to cave. To retreat. And she could just imagine her mother saying "Molly, really, you didn't _truly_ believe anyone would be interested in filming one of your scriblings?" 

No. 

Mary lifted her chin. "In that case, I see no reason for less Greek content. Only for more." 

The piggy eyed director tilted his massive head, and for the first time looked impressed. 

"Tell me more."


	4. Blackmail

V. 

He had fallen asleep at some point, which was inevitable. The body had its demands, and he didn't sleep much at night these days, not without dreaming of all that footage from the camps, though it had been months since he'd cut the wretched film. He wouldn't tell Sidney, but actually he'd been relieved to learn it was to be shelved and he wouldn't have to work on it again. 

Alma pinched him, and he woke up to find the novelist looking insulted. She needn't be. He did find her interesting, now that he'd managed to get her to reveal her fantasies. That was usually the most intriguing challenge in women: getting them to reveal their desires, whether or not they realized what they were doing, _especially_ if they were the restrained type. Now darling Ingrid wasn't restrained, but she did tell him, with a twinkle in her eyes because she knew what he was doing, and that was just one of the reasons why she was his current favourite, never mind Miss Renault not seeing her as Hilary. Scriptwriters, Alma always excepted, never counted when it came to casting. 

Now Miss Challans turned Ren-olt would never _volunteer_ such information, which made all that business about poofs doubly satisfying. He remembered being in his early twenties and wide eyed when taken to a Berlin cabaret where he'd watched two women make love. That, they hadn't taught at St. Ignatius. Fantasies aside, he'd been so ignorant about the female body until then; and what a revelation it had been to find out women could do this with each other. So much to learn in Berlin and Munich, where he'd directed on his own for the first time, and the second, and the third. Best not to think of Berlin and Munich now, full of rubble in the air like London, and the ash of burned corpses. No, better to think of Mary R., spinster with quite the imagination of her own . Of course she would never go anywhere where you could watch two men make love. But she evidently thought about it. He hadn't decided yet whether she'd want to watch or whether it was more that she wished she could be one of them. 

Being dissatisfied with your own body: he could empathize. 

Time to tell her she'd have to move to Claridge's to write the script with Alma. He had no intention of letting a first time scriptwriter out of supervision, especially not when he was in a hurry. Besides, who wouldn't want to stay at Claridge's for free? He certainly had dreamt of it often enough.

He expected some face saving protests, and then an acceptance. Instead, Miss R. surprised him again by telling him coolly that in that case, she wanted her companion, Miss Mullard, to be given a room here as well. "Miss Mullard has only a few days left before she has to return to work," she added matter of factly, "and we were intending to spend them getting our new houseboat into shape. Since this is to be postponed, there has to be recompense."

Well well well. Miss R. was worldly enough to negotiate brazenly. Panache at the start should be rewarded; one could always crush it later. 

"Why not?" he said generously. 

"I like a bit of queer business," he told Alma later, "getting it past the censors, but a plot, this still isn't."

"I know," she said. "What if we make the actor father a blackmailer instead? He comes back to put the thumbscrews on Mrs . Fleming. _That's_ her secret."

This was why he loved her. Always had. Alma Reville, first assistant director when he'd been a lowly editorial errand boy. He hadn't dared to ask her out until he'd made assistant director as well, and then he'd made her a job offer. He'd dared her to go Germany with him, though neither of them had spoken a word of the language, but oh, the chance to do your own films. And she'd said yes. They hadn't as much as held hands, but then, why would you need to if you could pass celluloid to each other, pointing out where another cut would make all the difference. 

"But wouldn't she have more leverage, no matter whether he's a bigamist or a buggerer?" he probed, already wondering whether he could get Claude Rains to play the father. "He needs to have more on her than the paternity." 

Alma frowned. He pondered while longing for the dogs to pet. They hadn't been allowed to bring their dogs with them to Britain. Their daughter Pat was taking care of them at home. If Pat hadn't graduated this spring, Alma wouldn't have been able to come with him to Britain at all; she hadn't particularly wanted to anyway. Unlike him, she'd managed to persuade her mother and sister to come to the US when the bombs had started to fall, and she still held a grudge because of all those jibes in the press about "a certain plump director gallantly facing the footlights". 

_His_ mother had insisted on staying. "England expects, Alf," she'd said, during one expensive phone call after another, "England expects." 

Dead now. Not because of the blitz, she'd survived it with aplomb. But dead. He still had the urge to confess his misdeeds to her, as he'd had to do every night as a boy. But she was dead, and so were his father and his brother Willy, both drinking themselves into the grave, which just goes so show, Alf, she'd said, that you really need not to indulge so much. In anything. Do you hear me? 

They were invincible, mothers, in all but this, because what boy did as told when he truly longed for something? Which was why he had no problem with that part of the novel, and its hero clinging to the beautiful maternal doctor heroine his mother had made into forbidden fruit. But Mrs. Fleming still needed a better secret. 

"When in doubt, always use a corpse," Alma said.


	5. The Praise Singer

VI. 

She dreamt she was at Oxford again, for which she blamed and thanked the hotel beds, utterly free as they were of the smells of disinfectant and bodily fluids that pervaded everything in the hospitals she'd served in for the last decade. Mary had been happy in Oxford, sometimes deliriously so. She'd been there a mere five years after full membership of the university had been granted to women, and she'd been still one of only a few. Oxford had given her the Ashmolean Museum where Sir Arthur Evans' replicas of his Cretan discoveries entranced her, and the Acropolis head of Alexander who became every beautiful hero she'd ever dreamt of. It had given her Professor Tolkien's lectures, the numinous world of myths they had revealed, and the sense of language being part of what could make life heroic. It had given her friends. It had offered her the joy and silliness of amateur theatrical productions, with only one part to spoil the experience, the review which had granted that while she'd moved well when playing Francois Villon, "her voice was so obviously feminine that she never seemed entirely inside her part". Even this rebuke, which had resonated and festered, hadn't been able to sour her on Oxford. 

Mrs. Hitchcock, though calling herself a professional writer, had never even properly finished school. "I got sick", she said ruefully. "I missed nearly two years, and then it was hopeless." 

"Which illness was that?" Mary asked with a flicker of professional interest, because the current day Mrs. Hitchcock seemed an athletic, healthy woman, if tiny and thus offering a somewhat grotesque spectacle when at her heavy husband's side. The contrast made you inevitably think of a sinewy Pekinese dog next to an overfed bull terrier. By herself, she was physically unobjectionable, though the fact she wore ever so tasteful pearls put Mary on edge. Pearls, and the way they moved on a woman's skin and blouse were forever associated with her mother. 

"St. Vitus' dance," Mrs. Hitchcock replied , which was the type of old fashioned term for Chorea Mary hadn't heard in a while. It made her scan the other woman's hands, which were calm and resting against her notes. Mrs. Hitchcock was following her look. 

"Oh, I haven't had symptoms for decades," she said. "But it was too late to return to school, and at any rate I was already cycling over to Twickenham Studio whenever I could to watch the filming. That's how I got my first job." 

Mary hadn't been allowed to ride a bicycle for the longest time, because her mother thought she would fall and wouldn't "look nice any longer, dear - and it already takes effort to make you presentable as it is". She felt a retrospective pang of envy. The whole subject of school and university had come up because she had felt the need to emphasize how important his time at Oxford had been for Julian, the escape from his mother it had offered, the revelation it had been. This needed to be included in the script, and in an effort to make Mrs. Hitchcock see that, she'd asked her about her own school experiences. As this had misfired, she tried another approach. 

"Hilary needs to know Julian has true talent", she said. "That it would be a sin if he were to waste it. But he would not boast. Reading the reviews of his appearances in Oxford..." 

"Well, we can certainly have her look at the articles and see the photos," Mrs. Hitchcock interrupted. "Briefly. But most of the audience hasn't been reading the classics at Oxford, so I doubt they'll continue to pay attention to a conversation about it. What they'll want to know is why his mother is so dead set against him becoming an actor, which brings me to my next point."

Her next point, it turned out, was a sensationalistic penny dreadful type of tale in which Elaine Fleming had killed Mr. Fleming after he'd discovered Julian was not his son by pushing him down the stairs, something Julian's natural father the bigamist actor had accidentally witnessed when showing up that very day at the Fleming mansion for some unsavoury reason, and which put him in the position to blackmail Elaine for the next twenty years. Her determination to keep Julian away from the theatrical profession would therefore be self protection in case he were to cross paths with his natural father, no longer a Canadian since, Mrs. Hitchcock concluded, they wanted Claude Rains to play the part. All of this sounded so horrifyingly unlike her novel that Mary blurted out the very first thing that came to mind.

"Claude Rains does not look like a Greek god!"

"Evidently," Mrs. Hitchcock agreed. "He's awfully charming, though."

"Julian resembles his natural father to an uncanny degree," Mary said. "This is essential to the plot. As is the fact Mrs. Fleming ruined the poor man's career by reporting him. He's a man who could and should have been great, a warning example to Julian when he finds out. Not a petty blackmailer!" By now, the words came faster and faster; the torrent of indignation in her started to burst. "And Elaine Fleming is not a murderess. Her awfulness lies in the fact she is keeps ruining her son's self estimation, keeps him imprisoned in her mundane world. She is a bourgeois monster who doesn't even have the imagination for being more." 

Mrs. Hitchcock opened the handbag next to her and took out glasses that gave her a sterner look. What a pathetic intimidation ploy, Mary thought. 

"My dear," the woman said, and the patronizing phrase alone was loathsome, "bigamists in my experience aren't even great liars, otherwise they wouldn't be found out, let alone great in other regards. But be that as it may. We need some suspense in the story, and it can't just be whether or not Hilary and Julian become an item, I'm sure you agree. Besides, the majority of cinema goers consists of bourgeois women who wouldn't be too keen on their sons ending up with eleven years older women, even if the alternative is him sizing up other men, and wouldn't consider the acting profession as a promising future, either. You really need to give them more to dislike Mrs. Fleming. "

At last the bigotry revealed itself in its true, petty colours. "And I suppose her committing murder of the soul isn't enough," Mary said bitterly. "Since so many do it, and it gets applauded. Julian is about to kill himself because of her before Hilary saves him. But no, you think such a woman would be sympathetic." 

Mrs. Hitchcock didn't even blink behind her glasses. "I think you're deliberately missing the point, Miss Renault."

Enough was enough, Mary thought. She would not be cowed a woman who had as good as admitted that she thought mothers who kept ruining their son's lives and looked down on the way they chose to love were justified.  


"Oh, if you think only grand guignol would do for the petty populace, why take half measures? You could just as well make Julian a murderer while you're at it", she said contemptuously. "But it will not be with my help. I don't need to sell my art at such a price."

Tiny Mrs. Hitchcock leaned back in the seductively comfortable armchair the hotel had provided them with and regarded Mary thoughtfully. 

"You know," she mused, "that's actually not a bad idea." 

"Selling out? Yes, I can see why you find that appealing," Mary said, by now no longer caring for the pretense of politeness and wishing to bring this disappointing experience to an end. 

"Julian as a murderer," Mrs. Hitchcock retorted, by now with an unmistakable gleam of delight in her eyes. "It would make for a wonderful second twist. The blackmailer thinks Elaine pushed Mr. Fleming, that's what he has on her. But it was really Julian as a toddler, trying to protect his mother when she was fighting with Mr. Fleming, too small to be visible from below the stairs. That's what she's trying to keep from him, and what he remembers in the caves." 

Mary didn't say "over my dead body", because that was too much of a cliché, and Professor Tolkien had taught her better. She simply rose and left. It was too late to telegraph Julie not to come to London after all, though, so she steeled herself for having to tell her there would be no stolen time in Hollywood luxury before they had to return to the real world. But the houseboat was theirs now, and they still had some time left before Julie, to whom being a nurse was a calling in the same way writing was to Mary, had to resume her work at the hospital.

Julie arrived at Paddington Station, having befriended a passenger enough so he helped her out with the luggage. Mary watched her smile gratefully at him, saw his enchanted look, and felt the curious mixture of joy, fear and satisfaction which usually rose in her at the sight of Julie flirting with men. Earlier in their relationship Julie had had two affairs, had even gone on a lengthy journey with one of the men, and it had been torture, but Mary had not shown any resentment because she'd sworn to herself she would never be the type of small minded nagging woman who would try to curtail the freedom of someone she claimed to love. But it had hurt, and when Julie had made her final decision and dumped Laz, her second male lover, the relief had been overwhelming. Since then, Julie hadn't fallen in love with someone else again, either male or female; watching other people respond to her on such harmless occasions therefore carried the satisfaction of knowing none of them would have her. Perhaps this was still small minded, but since Mary never told anyone out loud, she indulged herself.  


They ended up drinking tea at the station café, Julie's suitcase beside her, trying to ignore the noise of all the repairs still going on, while Mary summarized the situation for her, the vulgarity of the Hitchcocks, the way it had all ended in disaster. 

"Hm," Julie said. 

"They're going to turn it into something cheap and sensational", Mary fumed. "It's impossible to prevent, I know, since MGM has the rights, but at least they won't be able to claim I am supporting the grotesquery that will result in any way." 

Julie used her spoon to help herself to more of the sugar, miraculous real sugar, so rarely used in cafés since sugar rationing wasstill ongoing. She always had had a sweet tooth. 

"If the woman is a professional writer," Julie said slowly, "couldn't you appeal to her on that basis, to try to make her understand?" 

Mary liked her tea without any sugar; she needed the bitter intensity to keep going on stressful days, but right now, it felt too bitter even for her. 

"Writers don't share ethics, or ideals," she returned darkly. "Ours is a vertical society, not horizontal. There is no equality there. You have no idea, _no idea_ how low it goes." 

"Well, if you think it's hopeless, that's that. You shouldn't force yourself into doing something you don't like now that you finally don't have to anymore," Julie said. "But that's actually not a reason not to make that director pay for a few days in London. He asked you to come here, didn't he? And these American types swim in money. What's he going to do, cause a scandal and ask Claridge's to kick you out when you go back there?" 

It was this marriage of mischief and pragmatism that had carried Julie with her smile intact through the worst days of the war. 

"He's not American," Mary replied, which wasn't a disagreement at all.


	6. To Catch a Writer

VII. 

Alma was already typing busily when giving him an update on the Renault situation. He loved the new ideas, but she made it clear she had no intention of writing the script all by herself, not in the short amount of time they had. 

"Either drag Bridie here from Scotland or have another go at Miss Renault," she advised. "You could bring Johnny Gielgud with you as a bribe. Apparently she adored him when at Oxford." 

Gielgud hadn't been among his favourite leading men; too stagey, and too aware of his reputation on the stage, which was why he'd directed him only once, in _Secret Agent_. 

"What makes you think he'll be available to me on short notice?"

Alma gave him a look. "Because he's terrified of you," she said. "Back in the day he told me you make him feel like jelly." 

"I am a deeply misunderstood person," he said, feeling greatly flattered. "But even so, I doubt he'll serenade Miss Renault into being a good girl and helping you with the script."

Alma threw a pencil at him. "No, but he'll make her think he'll be in the picture. The one she just declared she wants nothing to do with. But then she won't be able to visit the set and admire him acting in something of hers."

This was an excellent plan, but unfortunately it turned out that John Gielgud was spending the summer in Southern France. Another type of bribe was needed. He thought about what Alma had told him and what he had himself observed. Since Miss Renault hadn't moved out yet, he sent a page with an invitation for a trip to the British Museum. Either the lure of the Elgin Marbles or her curiosity were big enough for her to accept. He felt a wave of nostalgia himself, not because of the Greeks, who held no interest to him, but because of the memories of directing the climax of _Blackmail_ there. Darling Anny Ondra, one of his most favourite blondes, and then the idiots at British International Pictures told him mid shooting it would have to be a talkie, and tried to take Anny away because of her heavy Czech accent. He had her dubbed by Joan Barry instead, because nobody could take an actress away from a Hitchcock picture if he wanted to have her there. 

He'd ordered a car to take him to the British Museum. By what means Miss Renault got there, he didn't know, but he watched her stride through the main entrance in her cardigan, by now definitely an Amazon on the warpath. "Mr. Hitchcock," she said when she spotted him, giving him a short nod and no more. 

"Miss Renault", he replied gravely, and walked beside her, away from the Reading Room where he had Donald Calthorp plunge to his death and towards the collection of marble nudes which had always struck him as singularly uninteresting. What made the human body alluring was the tantalizing hint there was more to come. The act of undressing, not the undressed. And if it was male nudity, well, then it was simply a conspiracy to make you feel inadequate. But he watched her stern expression grow ever so much softer as soon as they entered the hall that held the Parthenon facade, and knew he'd chosen the right arena. 

Still, her voice was firm when she said: "I assume your wife told you that I regard it as impossible to work on what amounts to a gross distortion of my characters and themes?"

"The subject did come up. But you see, I don't think that's true." 

"My novel has nothing to do with a blackmail and murder tale!"

It was a good thing that the marbles had slowed her down, because her natural stride was too fast for him. He really had to listen to Alma and go on another diet. Soon. Just not yet. 

"But it has," he insisted, preparing the trap. "And I think you know it does."

She made a dismissive movement with her hands. 

"You haven't even read it, have you?" she asked, every bit the disapproving Englishwoman. It reminded him of his mother telling him he hadn't finished his homework. Ah, nostalgia indeed. "You had your wife summarize it for you. I suppose that is common practice in Hollywood." 

He couldn't resist. "As no other director of my acquaintance has a wife who works as his scriptwriter and editor, I very much doubt that." 

She made an exasperated noise, and he grew serious. 

"A murder of the soul," he said. "Wasn't that how you put it?"

Surprise flickered in her eyes. She didn't say anything, but she nodded.

"It's the greatest power of all," he said, taking the plunge and testing his theory. "The one our mothers have over us. And if it is abused... well. Even the slightest note of accusation about the latest visit not having lasted long enough can be, dare I say it, blackmail. More merciless than any ransom note. I think I'm not wronging you in finding these themes in your novel."

By now, all her attention was on him. She had turned her back to the schoolchildren surrounding centaurs and gods. 

"You're not," she replied shortly. 

He waited, letting the silence make his point. "But that blackmail plot your wife suggested would make Mrs. Fleming the victim, not the villain," she said in a low voice. "They wouldn't hate her for imprisoning Julian and trying to destroy every shred of self respect he has, all his life. They might even pity her." 

He decided to put it all on the table. "And that would ruin the revenge, wouldn't it," he said. "For all those years of small murder, every day. For doing it still."

She didn't say anything. The children chattered in the background, asking why the horsies had heads of people. 

"My mother," he said without looking at her, because, good Catholic that he was, he knew all about confession needing the comfort of parted sight, "used to make me recount my daily wrongs to her, every evening. I grew quite the narrator. But the narrator can change the story. She's gone now. I'm still telling stories about her, my little Elsa Maxwell plump mother, struggling to get in her bloomers when the Zeppelins attacked London during the Great War, always putting both her legs through the same opening, and saying her prayers, while outside the window shrapnel was bursting around a search-lit Zeppelin. That's the image of her that stays with people. They laugh, they pity and admire. All at the same time. But it is my image, and my truth. " 

"I remember the Zeppelins," he heard her murmur. "I always wanted to watch them, but she made me go to the basement. I know that was the sensible thing to do. I knew it then, too. But then I said I wanted to be a pilot when I grew up, and she told me not to be silly, because that wasn't what a nice girl did at all." 

One of the school children ran away, the teacher calling sternly after him. He had never liked school trips. The other children used to tease him about the way his clothes smelled of fish, which they did ever since they'd moved to Salmon Lane, Limehouse, to the flat above the fish mongery. During school trips, when you went not just with your own class but with people from other classes, too, the number of boys coming up with new fish jokes doubled exponentially. 

"Let me tell you something about good, successful monsters in the pictures, Miss Renault", he said. "They're always pitiable. But that doesn't make them less monstrous. And you see them disarmed and defeated. Over and over again, all over the world. At least if I am the one shooting the picture."

"You're a clever man," she said, and he gave her a glance, somewhere between amused and irked at her wondering tone. "I hadn't realised."

Whether or not this signaled her readiness to work, he didn't ask, but the fact she agreed to return to the hotel with him was a good omen. Unfortunately, his car with the hotel provided chauffeur had disappeared. "London," he said disapprovingly. "Nothing quite like it. We'll have to take the bus." 

She asked him about California on the way back, and he found himself praising the sun and the colours, which encouraged her to admit her own longings for more sunshine. 

"I used to think at one time," she said wistfully, "I'd go to a Greek island once I could live from my books. But I couldn't, now. They won't let you take any of your money outside of England, and I can't start with nothing, not even in Greece." 

"They do if you move to a Commonwealth state," he replied. "My favourite aunt moved to South Africa for that reason. Durban. I was incredibly envious as a child."

She sat up straighter and looked intrigued. He found himself chatting about Aunt Emma, whose only recurringly voiced complaint about life in Durban was that she had to attend Mass via rickshaw, since there was no Catholic church in her neighbourhood. By the time they were back at Claridge's, he was reasonably confident that he had won Mary Renault around.

Which was when Alma appeared, looking cross, a telegram in her hand, covered with far too many words. Only one man abused the cable service at such length. David Selznick was up and back in his offices, it seemed, reconsidering his divorce settlements. And he wanted Hitchcock to resume work on _The Paradine Case_.


	7. The Last of the Wine

VIII.

Mary wasn't sure whether she'd been saved by fate from the temptation to compromise her artistic integrity or robbed of the chance to do something new with maddening yet interesting people. She wasn't sure how she felt about a lot of things. In any event, the HItchcocks decided this turn of events required something other than Claridge's and invited her to a pub for what was unmistakably a farewell drink. _The Paradine Case_ , she learned, was about a lawyer defending a murderess at the Old Bailey, believing her to be innocent, and ruining his marriage and career for her. 

"With Gregory Peck as the lawyer," Hitchcock said gloomily. "I told David from the start this was a terrible idea. Nobody is ever going to believe Gregory Peck as a lawyer, let alone the type to take up a quixotic cause. But no, he insisted. That's David Selznick for you. But not for me, not for much longer."

The irony of him complaining about his producer interfering in his creative decisions when he and his wife had been planning to completely change her novel, which he'd just almost convinced her to see as something that would somehow provide an emotional release. And yet she did not feel up for a cuttingly sarcastic remark pointing this out. Maybe it was that odd, lingering sense of fellowship he'd somehow managed to conjure in the British Museum, or maybe it was the ale, which reminded her of Oxford. Her mother would die at the thought of her daughter drinking beer. But she'd say it was only to be expected that a counter jumper from Leytonstone and his wife did. 

"Sidney will be pleased", Mrs. Hitchcock said soothingly. "Because it means you're free to start the first picture for Transatlantic that much sooner." She turned to Mary. "Which, I'm afraid , will not be _Return to Night_. We can't afford to pay MGM for the rights." 

Mary nodded, then found herself asking whether her book would be given to someone else to work on and direct. Mrs. Hitchcock tilted her head. 

"Possibly. Although I have to warn you. It's far more likely that it will make the rounds in a few production offices and then be discreetly forgotten. That is what happens to most novels in Hollywood. Unless, of course, your next book will be such a spectacular bestseller that everyone suddenly remembers they still have the rights to your previous one.'"

"Unlikely," Mary replied tartly, because she still felt the woman behaved patronizingly towards her. "As my plans do not involve any type of grand guignol. In fact," she took a deep breath, "the idea I have in mind is inspired by Plato's _Phaedrus_. A modern take on the parable of the Charioteer and the two horses." 

The two Hitchcocks stared at her with identical nonplussed expressions. Too late, it occurred to her that neither of them was likely to be familiar with Plato, and that she probably had just come across as flaunting her education in a snobbish way. 

"The hero will be confronted by his love for two different men", she elucidated, and felt a bit giddy, because she'd never spoken of this plan to outsiders before, only to Julie. Neither of the Hitchcocks looked shocked; on the contrary, Mr. Hitchcock had that slightly prurient gleam in his eyes which she'd noticed the first time when she explained about her original ideas for Julian's inclinations.

"Well, that _could_ be a bestseller," Mrs. Hitchcock declared to her surprise. "Not one for the pictures, of course, but my dear, I still remember all the fuss about the _Well of Loneliness_. The moment it was declared obscene by the court everyone just _had_ to get a copy. Maybe yours will be targeted by the _Sunday Express_ as well. That would certainly do it." 

Mary, who'd gotten her own pirated copy of _The Well of Loneliness_ from Julie, felt that protesting her artistic intentions aimed higher than simply making a sensation would be pointless and took another sip of ale.  


"This reminds me," Mr. Hitchcock said, addressing both her and his wife. "I think I have decided what our first project at Transatlantic is going to be. Miss Renault, you have been most inspiring." 

She couldn't help herself; she was genuinely curious. 

"It will about a triangle of three poofs as well," he continued cheerfully. 

Mary blinked. The sense of offense at the word came and went as her imagination tried to encompass Mr. Hitchcock directing a tale of Greek love. It failed and left her stranded in marvel and confusion. Mrs. Hitchcock seemed surprised as well, but then said, with an undertone of dawning comprehension and delight: "You don't mean..."

"Yes indeed," he returned, beaming at her, then turned to Mary again. "Miss Renault, do you remember the Leopold and Loeb murder in Chicago? I certainly do, but then I collect interesting murders. There was even a play about it which Alma and I saw here in London in 29, 30, around that time. _The Rope_. Those boys had been killing another student just because they could, and the play has their professor finding out. Alma at least was convinced he was buggering one of them as well, weren't you, darling?"

"It was fairly obvious," Mrs. Hitchock said. "But darling, are you sure? There is just the one location, after all." 

"That's just it," he exclaimed. "Cheap sets! Sidney will love it. And I always wanted to try something worth the one single take challenge. Nobody's done it before. One long uninterrupted take in one location. Two murderous buggers, the hidden corpse and the mentor who starts to figure it out. " He smiled at Mary, like a gleeful, bouncing ball someone had painted teeth on, and raised his glass of beer to her.  


"To buggery tales, and the people who create them", he said. "May we all profit!" 

She knew then with a rock solid certainty she would never allow any of her novels to be filmed, ever, if she was going to have any say in it. But she raised her glass to him, nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Mary Renault's novel _Return to Night_ did indeed win the MGM award in 1947, enabling her to leave England in 1948 to settle down for the rest of her life in South Africa with Julie Mullard. Alfred HItchcock was in England in early 1947 to shoot material for _The Paradine Case_ , though the rest of the production took place in the US. As far as I know, they never met, nor was Hitchcock ever considered as a potential director for a film version of _Return to Night_. But the idea, once I had it, proved irresistable. (And became more so once I started researching: Hitchcock's favourite aunt did indeed emigrate to Durban, South Africa, as Mary Renault ended up doing many years later.) 
> 
> What factual details and actual quotes I used about Mary Renault, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, are mainly taken from David Sweetman's "Mary Renault" and Patrick McGilligan's "Alfred Hitchcock: A life in darkness and light". (And yes, Hitchcock did complain about having to cast Gregory Peck as a lawyer in _The Paradine Case_ , which was of course years before Peck won the Oscar for playing Atticus Finch in _To Kill a Mockingbird". )_


End file.
